Re: Default button in dialogs

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom infernal-iceberg com>]

mrogers cs ucl ac uk (2001-05-09 at 2216.23 +0100):
> and Escape means "Cancel". So, could the style guide please reflect 
> this convention?

Please read http://www.delanet.com/~jkmissig/interface-guide.txt, it
proposes Enter in smarter way than OK (mainly cos OK must be avoided
if possible ;] ).

I think it is very nice as is, I would just add:

- buttons should have mnemonics if possible, so to Delete, or similar
dangerous actions, would be not as direct as Enter, but not as complex
as using always the mouse or tabing around. [IIRC this is a global
rule everyone has in mind, so maybe not needed here explicitily]

- Esc reverts or cancels (whichever applies in the case), after all it
is Escape ~= "no, i changed my mind, forget it". It will be the same
than clicking a button, if the button just changes something, Esc too,
if forgets and closes, the key too.

Conclusion: Esc is friendly (always undoes), Enter is friendly
(activates things... but only if not dangerous) and other keys can be
used for dangerous tasks (Delete -> D, ie). I do not care if you can
reformat your hard disk with Enter in Windows, if I requested format,
I will move the fingers to F (or see the Format label in the button
when moving the cursor), if it was an error and I believed it was non
dangerous, Enter will save me a PITA *. So all happy, IMHO.

I was going to keep the idea waiting until the first official drafts
would be published, but now that you comment about it, better say it
and point you to the doc at the same time.

GSR
 
PS: * I have not used Windows seriously in along time, but I guess it
will be Enter to format, then Enter again to get rid off "Are you
sure? Yes / No" ("sure of what?") and then start formating, which is
not good. ;]